Not really Alameda specifically, but tangentially related. Since all eyes are back on Alameda Point for this hot minute, remember when former Mayor Beverly Johnson, former City Councilmember Frank Matarrese and former Interim City Manager Ann Marie Gallant all took a little field trip down to Irvine California to visit the “Great Park”? I’m pretty sure that this was the path that this trio had wanted to take Alameda Point down.
But perhaps it was a good thing that the 2010 election went in a different direction and Alameda’s version of the Great Park was never jumpstarted because last month the LA Times had an update about Irvine’s Great Park and it was not at all the great. Highlight:
Ten years after Orange County residents voted to turn a shuttered military base into one of America’s most ambitious municipal parks, most of the land remains fenced off, looking very much like the airfield the Marines left behind.
The city of Irvine has spent at least $203 million on the project, but only 200 acres of the promised 1,347-acre Great Park has been built, and half of that is leased out for commercial farming.
…
Now, the money to build “the first great metropolitan park of the 21st century” — as the city calls it — has just about run out, leaving Irvine leaders to contemplate radical measures: Selling off public land to raise funds or asking private business to step in and build the park for them.
The park, by now, was supposed to be filled with scores of sports fields and eventually museums, cultural centers, botanical gardens, and maybe even a university — all tucked into a bucolic landscape of forests, lawns, a lake and 60-foot-deep canyon that would be scooped from the earth once the barracks and runways were demolished.
But there are no baseball diamonds or regulation soccer fields. No canyon, no forest, no sprawling museum complex.
There’s a funny quote from a former City Councilperson who suggested that if the City could only find more money they could complete the Great Park in 10-15 years.
Gee Lauren !
You remind me he day I told them if they like palm tree anonymous strip mall , artificial playground , pre planned activities so Much , why don’t they move south or Paterson like so many of our City finest have done …..
That was a City meeting they all wished to have called sick!
This is why I do support EBRP in their law suit against the City ,transforming what was once a park into a packed housing community and limited access to the waterfront is nothing else but another farce.
Alameda has a very long History of dirty playing with developers , one Mayor was even recalled some 74 years ago ,then it was kind quiet , then they trashed so many old Victorian , which led to Chuck Corica era , which regardless how anyone consider Him , He is the One that saved so many beautifull houses to become anonymous southern cubes , among other most of what we call today the pearls or gems of Alameda on Sherman , Grant and the like . Should anyone actually wonder how much was destroyed under the “so called modernization era” simply look at all the rental or condo around town then you understand the tragedy …..
We are back in full swing again transforming single family houses into multiples dwelling with little care of the conscequences .
Suncal did not come over on a field trip they were asked to …… the same peoples are still Here , we got rid away of one desease not the cause of it
I saw 3 new faces as Police officers , be nice if some of them would be Alameda Resident and part of the community , oh I forgot they can’t afford it !
Should City Employees be part of the Community it would positively affect everyone , would you come in Alameda dealing drug and the like knowing the guy around the corner is a Cop…..
Comment by mijoka — November 30, 2012 @ 8:54 am
Yes, mijoka, but now the culprit spurring multifamily housing is the State itself, via its RHNA requirements, & OneBayArea. Alameda cannot win, unless it withdraws from ABAG, which more communities are seriously considering.
And I heard there once used to be a requirement that Public Safety officers couldn’t be promoted above a certain rank unless they DID live in Alameda.
Comment by vigi — November 30, 2012 @ 9:33 am
Vigi makes an excellent point (Donkeys do indeed fly after all…:)
We should withdraw from ABAG. We need more – MUCH MORE — local control. It’s our community, not ABAG’s.
Comment by Jack Schultz — November 30, 2012 @ 9:56 am
withdrawing from ABAG reduces local control, not increases it. None of the requirements from the state are dropped, and instead of sitting as a voting member of a regional body that can have input to the process, the state can more or less impose what it wants. It’s political posturing with a negative net-result for the city.
The power of ABAG’s numbers has nothing to do with ABAG, it was to do with the state and regional funding that is increasingly being tied to complying with the decisions made by ABAG.
Comment by jkw — November 30, 2012 @ 10:54 am
Yes, Alameda seems awash in all that state funding….how will we ever replace it?
Comment by Jack Schultz — November 30, 2012 @ 12:18 pm
Hi Lauren,
Thank you for your posting on the Great Park at the former El Toro Marine base in Irvine. I hope it stirs interest in your readers, because re-use of NAS Alameda is still critical to the City. What is described in the posting is but one third of a story that may worth looking at. As a Councilmember, I took away from I noted that the Great Park planned to bring people to that massive previously limited-access land with some worthwhile activities. The Park’s temporary visitor center and activities were actually similar to the dome eventually built by the wineries at Alameda Point. On feature I specifically hoped to explore for Alameda was the tree farm for growing street trees better acclimatized to Alameda such as they did at that closed base. I thought it might be a good source of jobs for APC residents, locally run by their non-profit nursery. We even had an urban farmer come to the Point as follow up, to provide more information on feasibility.
I still think that it’s an idea worth pursuing. City involvement as the lead in planning, potential commercial uses, etc. were also featured during the field trip as opposed to a for profit master developer.
Though these and other features caught my attention, I never thought that Alameda should replicate the Great Park at Alameda Point. It was because of this that I took time out after visiting Irvine to make trips to two other local closed military installations: Hamilton AFB in Marin and Fort Ord AB in Monterrey. As I reported at the ARRA meetings and discussed with whoever showed interest at my Town Hall meetings, there were valuable elements that I thought were worth considering at Alameda Point.
At Hamilton, they did a great job in re-use of the historic hangers and, most impressive to me personally, they had embarked on massive wetlands restorations by taking up the run-ways. These two re-use aspects could be directly applied to Alameda Point. I still think it’s worth exploring to benefit the Bay, run-off control, shoreline protection and provide a superior habitat for the refuge.
At Fort Ord I was also impressed with the re-use of the historic barracks and the staged nature development plan. I also gained perspective that local planning was, again, important, that these base re-use projects often have regional considerations and the long view was important (a key in the FORA which had representatives from multiple public agencies around Ft. Ord). As with the Great Park, I was (and am) not an advocate of trying to replicate one or the other, but rather pick aspects that may be applicable to re-use of NAS Alameda as Alameda Point.
It would be interesting to follow up the progress and/or pitfalls of other communities faced with re-use of closed military installations and learn from others experiences – there’s still plenty to learn out there.
Frank Matarrese
Comment by Frank Matarrese — December 4, 2012 @ 10:06 pm
“Ten years after Orange County residents voted to turn a shuttered military base into one of America’s most ambitious municipal parks, most of the land remains fenced off, looking very much like the airfield the Marines left behind.”
16 years after the Alameda City Council voted to adopt the Community Reuse Plan that called for a 549-acre national wildlife refuge, the entire refuge area is fenced off, looking very much like the airfield the Navy left behind. And now we are being told that it will be called “VA Undeveloped Area” and owned by an agency that is under congressional orders to get its primary act together.
One of the lessons from Ft. Ord is to get the Department of the Interior involved. There is no longer any justifiable reason to not have them own and operate the refuge at Alameda Point.
Comment by Richard Bangert — December 5, 2012 @ 1:01 am